[Kafluke]

I have gone through hours of research and testing and I'm back to square one. I'm trying to get XBMC on atv to work like the xbox does as a media center extender for windows media center so I can watch live tv from an HD tuner. I'm not sold on WMC and will use something else if that's what you suggest. I have to use Windows as a server though because Linux does not support my TV tuner card (ATI Theatre pro 650). Let me be clear, I'm NOT trying to just play my recorded TV. I can already do that. I'm trying to watch live TV on my appleTV that my PC tuner card captures on a box in my closet.

Setup:

Windows 7 Ultra 64bit (backend server with ATI Theatre Pro 650 tuner card)
Apple TV 2 5.1 (jailbroken of course)
XBMC Eden beta 3

Things I've tried

- WMC as backedn (There are no plugins for XBMC for WMC)
- MythTV as backend on Linux (TV Tuner not supported)
- MythTV as backend on Windows (Complicated setup but I'm pretty sure my tuner is not supported cause I couldn't get it set up)
- ForTheRecord plugin on atv. (can't find one that will install and work on XBMC eden 3. I haven't tried installing FTR as a backend on the Windows box yet because I can't find a plugin for XBMC on atv 5.1)
- BeyondTV. I have a valid license for this software and it runs great on the windows box but I don't know how to make it show up on XBMC.

-

[ixian]

WMC as a backend is a big no-go and probably always will be.

Easiest setup if you are a Windows user is MediaPortal TV Server, For The Record, and the FTR addon installed in the XBMC distro of your choice. Myself and many others are using this combo right now to watch live TV and recordings - it's a little rough around the edges in places (there's no proper timeshifting support in XBMC yet for one) but it works well enough.

You'd be better served going to the 4TR forums and browsing/asking questions in the XBMC client subforum, you'll find a lot of them have been answered already. Red_F has an ATV plugin for FTR/XBMC though I haven't used it, I use XBMCBuntu.

[Kafluke]

WMC as a backend is a big no-go and probably always will be.

For XBMC? Yeah probably. However, right now that's the ONLY backend that actually works in my situation. I've managed to move EVERY function of my multiple streaming devices onto this single little "hockey puck" aTV 2. Everything EXCEPT for live TV. Right now I have to switch inputs over to my xbox 360 and then I can watch live TV in HD from my server in real time using WMC. If you have a better solution that allows me to watch live TV in HD in realtime on my XBMC enabled aTV then I'm all ears (hence the reason for this thread).

...and the FTR addon...

The problem is I can't find Red_F's plugin. I've looked all over and I havent found a download that I can install in XBMC on apple TV (Eden XBMC 11 beta 3).

...installed in the XBMC distro of your choice.

I'm very limited on my XBMC distro's of choice. I'm using AppleTV. I am unaware of any builds of XBMC for Apple TV 2 (IOS 5.1) that specifically support PVR functions.

*edit*

Found some builds to try out. I'll try and report back
http://www.4therecord.eu/forum/viewtopic...=41&t=2425

[Kafluke]

Ok I installed the latest build on that link. This one "org.xbmc.xbmc-atv2_11.0-0_ftr.0.0.1.133_iphoneos-arm.deb" and the icon is blank and it doesn't load. It just crashes back to the apple tv menu.

[Kafluke]

I don't think that atv 2 build is compatible with IOS 5.1 (the version that came with the device)

[ixian]

For XBMC? Yeah probably. However, right now that's the ONLY backend that actually works in my situation. I've managed to move EVERY function of my multiple streaming devices onto this single little "hockey puck" aTV 2. Everything EXCEPT for live TV. Right now I have to switch inputs over to my xbox 360 and then I can watch live TV in HD from my server in real time using WMC. If you have a better solution that allows me to watch live TV in HD in realtime on my XBMC enabled aTV then I'm all ears (hence the reason for this thread).

I got that. I know what you are saying, I'm telling you how to do it There's one problem though....

[quote='Kafluke' pid='1088919' dateline='1335588277']
I don't think that atv 2 build is compatible with IOS 5.1 (the version that came with the device)

Can you even Jailbreak 5.1 on the ATV? I thought 5.1 didn't have a Jailbreak out (there's a tethered one for the iPhone/iPad, but the ATV2 is still a no-go as far as I am aware).

Without Jailbreaking you are out of luck completely.

[Kafluke]

Of course I'm jailbroken. Seas0npass will perform a tethered JB on aTV2 5.1. I'm already running XBMC

[Kafluke]

Nobody else huh?

[skippy]

The atv2 has limited capabilty in the video formats it supports. Unless the livetv is h264 encoded, I am afraid you will have limited success.

[Kafluke]

The atv2 has limited capabilty in the video formats it supports. Unless the livetv is h264 encoded, I am afraid you will have limited success.

Please tell me a video plugin that works in XBMC and DOESN'T work on appleTV. Every add-on I've tried that has been reported working for XBMC works the same on atv2. Do you actually have a atv2 or are you just speaking on a subject that you've ready about?

[keith]

XBMC does not run on iOS 5.1 yet. There's threads in the iOS support section about it. They're working on it.

Kafluke, what skippy means is much of the Live TV streaming in is in MPEG2. The hardware decoder on ATV2 is specifically H.264, an MPEG4 variant. It will not accelerate MPEG2 at all.

I have TVHeadend+XBMC running an HDHomeRun w/ QAM. I can watch the SD TV stations live, but I cannot watch any of the HD stations on my ATV2. the processing power required is too much for just cpu.

No ETA on when XBMC will support iOS 5.1.

[Kafluke]

What are you talking about? Of course XBMC runs on iOS 5.1. I have appletv ver 5.0 (iOS 5.1) on my atv2 and I'm running XBMC right now. Do you want a video to prove it? I think you must be talking about iOS 5.1 running on ATV3 (1080p version).

I've read entire threads where people are running HD through ATV2 using a HDHomeRun watching HD just fine. I am just looking for a windows based solution for a backend since I already have an internal PCI-E HD TV tuner and didn't want to have to purchase an external HDHomeRun.

[mpruett]

I don't really want to resurrect such an old thread, but this kept coming up when doing my research to get live tv on the apple tv 2, and IMHO so far the best solution I have found (for a windows 7 backend) is using media portal, plus the TheChiefs ATV2 pvr (builds can be found here: http://xbmc.picmania.org/)

His builds contain PVR addons for ForTheRecord, MediaPortal, MythTV, TVheadend, VDR VNSI, VDR XVDR and VU+, so if you use a different backend it "should" work with them as well.


I have pretty much the same issues as most have reported SD works just fine HD buffers and stutters. I am using a dual hdhomerun, a hdhomerun prime, some old K world card I have had for ages atsc/clear qam/ntsc (software based mpeg2) and a ati 650 pcie atsc/ntsc card (software based mpeg2). I do not get any encrypted channels from my hdhomerun prime (despite having a cable card in it and activated, WMC does get all the channels), but despite this limitation i actually find this to be pretty stable, the only real problem i have run across is the timeline view for the EPG crashes ATV2 back to main menu. I have checked the logs but do not see any errors when this happens basically the last entry states changing epg view to 16 (or some other number not for sure off the top of my head) but I am assuming that it is prolly due to the size of my epg and how many channels have to load, pvr builds for windows do not show the same behavior.

I also would like to give a big shout out to MARGRO his posts on these forums and at http://www.scintilla.utwente.nl/~marcelg/xbmc/ were by far the most useful in getting my setup going.